


The Heart of my Coming Into Being

by Paper_Crane_Song



Category: Stargate (1994), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, Episode: s01e01-02 Children of the Gods, Episode: s03e18 Shades of Grey, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-06-26 10:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19766386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper_Crane_Song/pseuds/Paper_Crane_Song
Summary: “So this friendship thing we’ve been working on the last few years...”“Apparently not much of a foundation there, huh?”Set during the season 3 episodeShades of Grey. As Jack waits in anticipation for the moment he can put things right with Daniel, he thinks back to their first mission together on Abydos.





	The Heart of my Coming Into Being

**Author's Note:**

> To me, Stargate was a film about a man grieving the loss of his son and wanting to die, and another man who showed him reasons to live.
> 
> This story examines that dynamic through the episode _Shades of Grey_. I’ve taken a bit of a liberty as in the episode Jack explains his double-agent role to Daniel, Carter and Teal’c at the same time, but in my version Jack has to wait a bit before he can explain himself to Daniel. 
> 
> The title is taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
> 
> Your thoughts and feedback would be much appreciated.

“You have to act against the gravity of grief - to decide you won’t fall.“

\- David Grossman (author)

* * *

**Jack**

“I’m back,” he said, but he was only half-listening to General Hammond’s explanation, the relieved reactions from Carter and Teal’c -

“It’s good to have you back sir,”

”Indeed,”

\- because he was looking for Daniel, trying not to be too obvious, scanning the gate room, and no, Daniel definitely wasn’t there.

He waited until the Tollan had left and then, as casually as he could, he said, “Where’s Daniel?”

“Doctor Jackson’s off-world on an archeological site with SG-4,” Hammond said.

“He’s coming back tomorrow sir, oh seven hundred,” Carter supplied quickly, perhaps wanting to save him from having to ask. As if she knew what it meant that Daniel wasn’t there.

“I’ll expect a briefing in one hour,” Hammond said, leaving them to it. 

There was an awkward silence. Carter raised her eyebrows, a visual ‘ _so...’_ as she waited to follow his lead. Teal’c just looked at him, expressionless. 

He cleared his throat. “Okay kids, fill me in,” he said, heading in the direction of the corridor. “What’s been happening since I’ve been gone?”

“We gathered some valuable information about naquada deposits on P3X-115," Teal'c said. 

“Cool,” he said, feigning interest. He left a sufficient-enough pause, and then he said, “So, did SG-4 request Daniel for their dig, or...” he trailed off deliberately so they would fill in the blanks, and Carter obliged.

“Actually, it was Daniel’s idea sir,” she said, looking uncomfortable.

“What? Daniel hates SG-4.”

Teal’c tilted his head. “For what reason?” just as Carter was saying “I think _hate's_ a little strong, sir -”

He interrupted them. “Was it an especially fascinating dig?”

Carter hesitated. “Daniel just felt he needed a...“ she landed on “change of scene.” He detected an undercurrent of disapproval in her voice, aimed not at Daniel, but at him.

He sighed. “I take it he told you what happened when he came round to mine last week?”

He caught the uneasy glance Carter shot Teal’c. “Not exactly, sir.”

Teal’c looked stern. “Daniel Jackson merely stated he had been mistaken about many things, his friendship with you being one of them.”

Damn. Somehow hearing it from Teal’c made it all the more real. 

“The place was bugged,” he said with more force than he’d intended. “They were listening to our whole conversation, I had to stop him from - “

“We know, sir,” Carter said, looking anxious now. Maybe there was something showing in his expression because they were both trying to comfort him. “He’ll understand, sir.”

”Daniel Jackson is capable of great forgiveness.”

But he didn’t want their sympathy. He wanted to hot-tail it through the gate and grab Daniel and explain everything.

He purposefully took a left towards the locker rooms, away from their attention and concern. “See you at the briefing.”

* * *

By the time the briefing was over it was getting late. “Colonel, a word,” Hammond said, gesturing to his office. 

“General?” he said as Hammond seated himself behind his desk.

“Jack, I want you to take a few days.” Hammond held up a hand to forestall any protest. “It would be unreasonable of me to expect any of my men to transition back from a covert operation straight away. You’re no different.”

He sighed, knowing better than to argue. “Yes sir.”

“You did a good job. It mustn’t have been easy for you.”

He shrugged. “Sticking it to Makepeace was pretty easy.”

Hammond smiled and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk. “Good evening Colonel. Enjoy your time off.”

“Thank you sir.”

* * *

He supposed the sensible thing to do would be to go home, make a clean sweep of the house, rid the place of bugs. Get a decent sleep, come back the next morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to meet Daniel.

But he was strangely reluctant to leave the base. Leaving would feel like this whole business was finished, except it wasn’t. He owed it to Daniel to wait for him. Besides, there was always a chance SG-4 returned earlier than scheduled. He had to be there when Daniel came through that gate.

So he checked himself into one of the VIP rooms, found a sports channel and sat back on the bed. 

_The control room. SG-4 were due back any moment._

_He fidgeted, caught Carter noticing and laced his fingers behind his back Teal’c-style in an effort to stop._

_“Incoming wormhole,” the technician said. “It’s SG-4.”_

_“Open the iris,” Hammond said._

_But something wasn’t right. The wormhole was there, shimmering, but nothing was coming through._

_“Sergeant?”_

_“It’s SG-4’s code sir, I’m not sure what - ”_

_Jack didn’t stick around long enough to hear the end of the sentence. He bolted to the gate room, Carter in tow. Just as they got there he saw a hand emerging from the wormhole, an arm, a helmet._

_Someone was crawling through the gate. Was that even possible?_

_He ran up the ramp just as Carter was shouting, “We need a medical team stat,” and then the figure crumpled and Jack pulled him the rest of the way through before the wormhole disengaged. It was Wallace, one of SG-4._

_“Where’s the rest of them?” he demanded but Wallace, covered in blood, was now unconscious._

_The medical team came with their stretcher, whisked him away, and Jack straightened._

_“Sir, permission to take a rescue team through the gate,” he said to Hammond who had joined them on the ramp._

_“After we send a MALP through,” Hammond said, his face grim. “Then we’ll see.”_

_But the MALP didn’t show anything and Wallace was dead, and when he and Carter and Teal’c and SG-2 went through the gate, to a planet that looked like Abydos, there was no sign of SG-4 or Daniel even though they searched and searched for hours._

_Then he stumbled on something, a boot poking out from under the sand dune and he realised with a sick feeling that there was a body attached to it. There were bodies buried in the sand. He gave the order to start digging and he began scooping up the sand but it kept sliding back and he looked up at the others but they were just stood there watching him, Carter, Teal’c, SG-2, watching him like he’d gone crazy._

_“Why aren’t you helping me?” he shouted but they didn’t move and he kept trying to dig but it wasn’t making a shred of difference -_

He bolted upright, stared at his hands expecting to see grains of sand even as his brain kicked into gear and he realised where he was; in the VIP room with the TV flickering. 

He got up and hit the lights, took a swig of water. But the distress of the dream lingered.

He checked his watch. A little after 3am.

He needed to be somewhere closer to the gate, closer than the VIP quarters allowed with its winding corridors and a whole elevator ride away from the gate room. He needed to be as close to the stargate as possible. 

* * *

So that was how he wound up in the briefing room, flask of coffee in hand, looking out over the gate. He was still wearing civvies and the personnel had looked at him strangely but they’d let him be even though technically he was off-duty. 

After satisfying himself that the gateroom was quiet, that no one would be coming through any time soon, he settled himself into one of the chairs and prepared to while away the next four hours or so until Daniel returned.

Maybe it was a little over the top, this behaviour. Carter probably thought so. After all, he was an air force colonel and Daniel was a doctor of archaeology; they were two grown men and whatever he’d said couldn’t have done that much damage.

Except no one else had the kind of friendship that he and Daniel had, and so no one else could understand how devastatingly and effectively he’d ended it in just a brief conversation.

_“So this whole friendship thing we've been working on the last few years...”_

_“Apparently not much of a foundation there, huh?”_

Daniel had held his gaze, absorbing all the weight of the ugliness and cruelty in that statement, tears threatening before he forced them back and got up and left.

The ironic thing was that, in order to find those words to say to Daniel, to act in the way he had, he’d channelled the man he’d been on the Abydos mission the first time around. The man Daniel had saved.

“ _So this whole friendship thing we've been working on the last few years...”_

Because there hadn’t been any friendship there, not at first. There hadn’t even been respect. But there’d been an appreciation - of how Daniel had waltzed in and corrected the Giza translation to the chagrin of the other archaeologists, of how he picked up a magic marker and drew chevrons on the control room’s computer screen even as the technicians protested, of how he solved the mystery of the stargate in such a casual, self-deprecating way that it took people a moment to even realise what he’d done. It was all pretty amusing really.

And if he was capable of being amused again then maybe that meant he had the ability to be surprised again. That not everything was predictable, inevitable. 

Daniel had been so confident back then on that first mission to Abydos, so sure of himself. So certain that his solution of the stargate was right, that detonating a bomb was wrong, that he could get the unit home again once they’d gone through the gate. And it had irked Jack because after Charlie he was no longer certain of anything. In a world where a kid could shoot himself with his father’s gun, everything he thought he knew was upended. Suddenly he wasn’t sure of anything, least of all himself.

And yet Daniel had suffered the same world-altering, screwing-with-reality events that he had. He’d read Daniel’s file; the death of his parents, how he’d been bounced around the foster care system. All that and Daniel was still so sure that the universe was a good place, that there were good things to discover, that people could be good. 

After what happened to Charlie, Jack expected everything to sour, to end in darkness and pain. _I used to be like you,_ he’d thought condescendingly through a cloud of cigarette smoke as they’d sat there around the first meal Kasuf served them. Daniel was the only one eating it, the only one enjoying himself. _I used to be that guy who knew how to have a good time. But now I know better._

Except, Daniel had suffered too. He’d lost people, and that hadn’t turned him into a joyless cynic who was too proud to eat the food that was offered to him, to accept the simple hospitality of the Abydonians.

Goodness knows what Daniel had seen in him back then, what had made him gravitate towards Jack as he had done - though Jack had a hunch it had started when they’d first come through the gate. Daniel hadn’t taken the journey so well and had emerged disorientated, distressed.

“It’s all right, it’s over,” he’d said, kneeling down and grasping Daniel’s arm to anchor him, reassure him. It was instinctual. But somehow that was enough for Daniel to latch onto him, like a rescue dog grateful for even the smallest act of kindness. And from that moment on he had a shadow again.

Charlie had been his shadow. Always around, at his side, somewhere in his orbit. When Charlie died, he’d gotten used to being alone. Cultivated it. Whilst the rest of the SG unit had been setting up camp under the scorching sun he’d been alone in the darkness setting up the bomb. He welcomed the isolation that the rank of commanding officer afforded him. He was no longer one of the guys. His men walked behind him, not with him.

But now, all of a sudden, here was Daniel by his side, literally. In the military they were trained to stand apart from one another to reduce collateral damage when the enemy started shooting. Except Daniel hadn’t got the memo, didn’t seem to realise that it was a bad idea to hover at people’s elbows, and yet the more time went on and the more Jack got used to having Daniel at his side the less he felt like clueing him in. Because the truth was, even now, he liked having Daniel there. Liked knowing where he was, liked having him in convenient grabbing distance in case they needed to duck or run for cover. 

When Jack had started down the sand dune to make first contact with the Abydonians, Daniel had naturally fallen into step next to him, and Jack’s protective instincts kicked in again and he’d put a warning hand on Daniel’s arm - “easy,” - sensing Daniel’s eagerness to reach these people as fast as he could, even if it meant leaving the safety of the unit behind.

Come to think of it, that gesture pretty much summed up their friendship. Daniel was always three steps ahead, urging Jack along to join him in embracing new people and cultures and meaning-of-life stuff, and Jack was always pulling him back, saying “easy,” because not everyone was friendly and culture wasn’t everything and sometimes the meaning-of-life stuff could very well end up getting you killed. Somehow their friendship existed halfway between all of that, but it was always in a state of tension, requiring understanding and trust.

“ _So this friendship thing we’ve been working on these last few years...”_

It needed respect, too. That first mission to Abydos, he’d felt the stirrings of it when Daniel had purposefully deactivated the guard’s helmet to expose the false god within. Before, Daniel had inadvertently brought the Abydonians to their knees, but now Daniel was allowing them to stand, showing them that things could be different, that they could even be better. 

Gradually the SG unit had come to respect Daniel too. Kawalsky had decided to take him under his wing with a “come on Jackson,” even though it was only hours ago he’d knocked him down. And Jack was glad, because it meant he didn’t have to be responsible for Daniel any more. Let someone else watch out for him.

But it was Jack that Daniel had run to when they came under attack in the pyramid, and he motioned for Daniel to shelter next to him. _Don’t trust me_ , he wanted to say, _I’ll get you killed, like_ _I did Charlie._

And as he grabbed Daniel’s jacket and pulled him out of danger, away from the blast, and down into the gate room where the bomb was, the questions had started, the endless questions; “Where are we going? Why are we going to the stargate? What are you doing? What is that? What are you looking for?” It reminded him of how Charlie used to talk to him, unfiltered, uninhibited. 

“Stay right here and shoot anything that comes down that ramp,” he’d ordered Daniel, handing him a gun and positioning him at the doorway. As orders went, that was pretty damn clear, and any of his unit would have done just that.

But Daniel hadn’t stayed there, he’d followed Jack, turning his back on the ramp. The worrying thing was, Jack hadn’t even been expecting Daniel to do as he was told. He’d already gotten used to Daniel disregarding his orders, as if it were up to Daniel’s discretion whether he chose to follow them or not.

And then the rings had activated, and Daniel had pointed his gun at the shape within the rings, and the gun was shaking in his hands but he was holding onto it because Jack had given him that gun, and he trusted it, trusted in the power of the gun and the man who had given it to him.

The gun was powerful, but Jack had sensed a greater power in the form materialising in the rings. If Daniel hadn’t been there, if it had just been him, he would have unleashed his bullets, trying to find a chink in the armour. Welcoming the end, if it came.

But Daniel _was_ there, and Jack was now the protector of this life which had misguidedly attached itself to his. So he’d said, “Put it down,” in the hope of prolonging Daniel’s life.

When the guards brought them to Ra’s throne room and struck them in the back of the knees to make them kneel, he’d held onto Daniel, steadying him even though he was the more worse off of the two because his knees weren’t in such great shape any more. Daniel hadn’t even been expecting it, had been too busy gazing around him - it hadn’t even crossed his mind that these people would hurt him. But Jack knew what people were capable of. 

The strange thing was, Daniel knew it too. He knew the universe wasn’t all good. But somehow he didn’t see it as all bad, either.

As the doors had opened to reveal Ra, Daniel had looked to Jack. Watching how he reacted to all of this, seeking reassurance in the same way that Charlie looked to him for reassurance. As a parent, Jack had got good at pretending.

And so because Daniel’s eyes were on him he schooled himself to look calm, in control. He raised himself as tall as he could whilst kneeling, making himself look as large as possible. Maybe he’d played his part a little too well became when the bomb was wheeled out, Daniel had lit into him, angry and confused like they were the only two people in the room, like he’d forgotten all about the danger they were in.

“What is that? That’s a bomb, isn’t it? That’s what you were looking for. What the hell were you thinking? What did you come here for?”

But he ignored Daniel’s outrage. Tactically they had the best chance of escaping right there, whilst they were all focusing on Daniel and his moral indignation. If he could take out the guards - who were human, after all – then he would have an open path to Ra.

He acted quickly, taking down one guard with a right hook, took out another guard, seized the staff weapon – and all the while Daniel was shouting his name; “Wait! Wait!” and he wasn’t fast enough to take out the third, and Daniel was shielding him, protecting him even whilst he was crying out for him to stop.

And when Daniel died, Jack was left utterly alone as he knelt there, pointing the staff weapon at Ra, hesitating to fire it because of the children crowded in front of him. He welcomed death when it came because Daniel was dead and Charlie was dead, and really, he had no desire to be a part of this universe any more.

But when he came round, shocked into consciousness by that fall into the pit of water, he was reminded again that the only thing worse than dying was living.

“Where’s Jackson?” Kawalsky had said, and he’d just stared at him, mute, horrorstruck, unable to give voice to his monumental failure.

Later, as they’d knelt for execution outside the pyramid, all he could think of was how right he’d been. Of course it all ended in death and suffering, and what a fool he was to start believing it could ever be any different.

When Daniel had appeared brandishing the staff weapon, he’d steeled himself against the hope that flared because there _had_ to be a catch, Ra had turned Daniel with his own brand of Egyptian alien voodoo, and they were all dead men one way or another.

But there was no catch. Daniel really was alive, and thanks to Skaara and the others they’d escaped. They’d recovered round the fire, the kids giddy with the rescue and the success of it, and his men were grinning and they all looked so damn pleased with themselves, and the knowledge that Ra had the bomb made it all the more terrible, and it was his fault and there was nothing he could do about it.

“We could sure use their help,” Kawalsky said, referring to the kids.

He’d lost it. “For what?” he’d shouted. “To do what?” And they’d fallen into a shocked silence. No one knew how to respond to his outburst, no one was strong enough to meet his despair head on, not when Charlie died, and not now. 

Except Daniel. Daniel met it without flinching. Moreover, he had an answer for him.

“Why don’t you just tell them everything? Why don’t you tell them about the bomb?” And he’d calmly laid out what Ra intended to do in such a way that he forced Jack to respond with a plan -

“I’ll intercept the bomb before he can send it through.”

That was the first time he’d really thought of Daniel as an equal. The first time he’d called him by his first name.

“ _So this friendship thing we’ve been working on these past few years...”_

But the truth was back then, he didn’t want Daniel as an equal. Didn’t want him as someone who could challenge him, or worse, befriend him. So when Daniel tried to reason with him - 

“It’s the gate on Earth that poses a threat. That’s the one we have to shut down”

\- he’d replied with sarcasm and scorn. “You’re absolutely right, but since you don’t know how to get us back, we don’t have that option, do we?”

Daniel had just stared at him, hurt, and Jack felt his conscience stab at him. Just hours ago the guy had stepped in front of a staff weapon for him, and he hadn’t even got round to thanking him. And now this.

Sara was right. He wasn’t fit to be around people, especially good people like Daniel or innocents like Skaara.

He got up. Withdrew to the furthest spot he could find, a cave that was dark and shadowy, and he sat there by the fire, alone.

Funny how he’d sat for hours alone in Charlie’s room, the lights off, self-imposed isolation even though he could hear Sara moving around the house. And now, halfway across the galaxy, here he was again. 

But then Daniel had come, had sought him out, had seen through his words that were intended to wound and repel and heard what was real.

“You had accepted the fact that no matter what happened, you would not be going home. Don’t you have people who care about you? Don’t you have a family?”

And Jack found himself telling him about Charlie - 

“I had a family. No one should ever have to outlive their own child”

\- even though he’d vowed never to speak of his son. Because the memory of him, his essence, was too fragile and too precious to bring out into the light for others to destroy with their own horrified reactions and lack of understanding.

But somehow he knew it would be okay to tell Daniel, that he could trust him with it, that Daniel could take it, that he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by it.

And he’d been right. Daniel had absorbed his grief, but Daniel hadn’t let him dwell in it.

“I don’t want to die. Your men don’t want to die. And these people here don’t want to die. It’s a shame you’re in such a hurry to.”

Skaara had interrupted them then, bringing water to Jack.

“ _Don’t you have people who care about you?”_

Daniel cared, and Skaara cared too, enough for them to come and seek him out, to comfort him, to bring him water. 

And so later, in the gateroom as he activated the bomb, he vowed that he would send Daniel home, that he would give Daniel what he had thrown away; the chance to have a family.

“What are you doing?” Daniel had asked. 

He’d explained about the bomb, seen the dawning realisation on Daniel’s face that Jack still meant to die, and Jack felt obscurely like he’d betrayed him. 

Then suddenly Sha're was dead, and as Daniel knelt over her body, looking up at him, there was no need for words. Just the shared knowledge that someone had died on their watch, an innocent, and that it was their fault.

But then Daniel had surprised him all over again by gathering Sha're into his arms and stepping into the rings.

“What are you doing?” Concern and fear made him sound harsh and angry, but Daniel had understood, said “Wait for me,” in a voice thick with tears. And then Jack knew what Daniel was planning to do. Daniel was planning to bring Sha're back to life.

Jack had held Charlie’s body in his arms in that same desperate way Daniel was holding Sha're. He’d even believed for a moment that he could bring Charlie back, that the gunshot wasn’t fatal, that he could change things even as Sara started screaming.

But somehow Daniel had done it. Jack had pinned Anubis down, forced him into the rings, and as the disembodied head was transported away and Daniel and Sha're materialised, alive, he took a moment just to sit back on his heels and gaze, gaze at this miracle before him.

The bomb was still counting down though, and Daniel had knelt alongside him as he fought to deactivate it, shouldering the burden of the bomb with him. Then they’d felt the pyramid shuddering as Ra’s ship took off, and they’d turned to the rings and then to each other -

“I’ve got an idea.”

That had been the start of it, their speaking in tandem, and it was something he’d never encountered before, not even with Sara. He’d gone from being so alone to being so in tune with someone that they spoke the same words at the same time. 

_“Then no. I guess you couldn’t relate to me any more than I could to you.”_

_”So this friendship thing we’ve been working on the last few years...”_

And they’d transported the bomb onto Ra’s ship, where it had exploded with such force he could feel the vibrations of it deep within the pyramid, and as he, Daniel and Sha're had walked out of the darkness into the light and the cheers of the Abydonians greeted them, he felt alive again in a way that he’d not felt since Charlie died.

Under the burning Abydos sky Skaara saluted and Jack smiled, the first proper smile since Charlie, and he looked sideways at Daniel, wanting to share this moment with him. But Daniel and Sha're were locked in an almighty kiss and so he shrugged, looked back at Skaara, grinning. And then Kasuf started leading everyone in fist pumps and he just stood there, savouring it, his heart so full he thought it would burst. 

_We can make a difference. We can change things. We can even make them better._

Hope was attractive, and it was contagious. It allowed Jack to tell Teal'c in a Chulak prison, “ _I can save these people!”_ Teal'c had fired on the other guards before throwing his staff weapon to Jack.

_“Many have said that. But you are the first I believe could do it!”_

And when Sha're was gone, and Daniel had stood there in the gate room, his voice flat with despair, “ _She’s out there somewhere Jack… what do we do?”_ he’d been able to give Daniel back the hope he had lost.

_”We’ll find her.”_

He should have been more surprised when Daniel said he was staying behind on Abydos. Really though, he’d expected nothing less.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked like an overprotective parent, “you going to be all right?” After all, life on Abydos would be tough; no running water, no electricity, no doctor in case something went wrong. 

But as always, Daniel had chosen what was important, what really mattered; a place where he belonged, with people who cared about him and who loved him. A family. 

And then Daniel surprised him by turning the question back on him. “Are you going to be all right?”

He smiled. Funny how he couldn’t stop smiling now. “Yeah.” And he even laughed as he said it. “Yeah, I think so.” Because not everything ended in death. Sometimes people died, but sometimes they lived, too. The natural order of things wasn’t decay, but life.

He shook Daniel’s hand, and he read the sadness in Daniel’s eyes, the regret that this extraordinary friendship of theirs was ending before they’d even had a chance to recognise it for what it was. And so he couldn’t help but reassure Daniel one last time - “I’ll be seeing you around, Doctor Jackson” - and he fervently hoped one day it would be true. 

When he got back to Earth, Charlie was still dead, and Sara had left, but he was able to put Charlie’s death in its proper context, to separate the past from the pain so that he could honour Charlie by talking about him, to speak him back into life even though the absence of him was everywhere.

And slowly, he began to heal.

He carried that lightness with him after he was recalled out of retirement again. It allowed him to make jokes at Samuels' expense because that guy needed a serious reality check. To use a Kleenex box to make contact with Daniel, ostensibly to save time but really because he knew Daniel would get a kick out of it. To respond to Carter’s intensity with a characteristic humour that defused the tension in the briefing. To reminisce with Kawalsky about Skaara, how the saluting had reminded him of Charlie, and to take pleasure in the memory of his son. To go through the gate a second time expecting to be greeted with welcome, food and friendship, and he wasn’t disappointed. 

And when Sha're had been taken and Daniel wrenched away from Abydos, echoing the despair Jack had felt on Abydos the first time around, “ _They don’t know what to do with me. And I don’t know what to do with myself,”_ he’d been able to answer Daniel - 

“ _Come on. Let’s get out of here.”_

And it was there, in his living room, that they’d sat facing each other over a beer and Jack had told Daniel things he hadn’t told anyone. 

“I think in her heart she forgave me for what happened to our kid. She just couldn’t forget.”

“What about you?” Daniel had asked.

“I’m the opposite. I’ll never forgive myself. But sometimes I can forget. Sometimes.”

Questions - 

_What did you come here for?_

_Don’t you have anyone who cares about you?_

_Are you going to be all right?_

Questions - that cut through trivialities, that got to the heart of what mattered. That was where it had really began, their friendship. 

And three years later, in that same room, over another beer, with Daniel asking him question upon question, trying so hard to find out what was real -

 _“_ _So this_ _whole friendship thing we've been working on the last few years - ”_

_“Apparently not much of a foundation there, huh?”_

was where it ended.

* * *

He looked at his watch. He had some time still, should probably grab breakfast or at least some fresh coffee. But he didn’t want to run the risk of seeing anyone in the canteen, of having to account for why he was still there. The next person he wanted to see was Daniel, and he needed Daniel to know that ‘this whole friendship thing’ -

was the most important, the most significant, that he’d ever had. That their first mission to Abydos had saved his life, had changed it in a way that he had never thought was possible after Charlie died.

Back then, he’d found it hard to believe that anything could matter any more. But Daniel had shown him – had kept on showing him – that some things, the small things, didn’t matter, and that was okay. But some things did matter, they were worth caring about, and he needed to care about them.

The briefing room was still dark. He started to pace, and when it was nearly 0700 he all but ran down the steps into the gate room. He looked up behind him to see General Hammond in the command centre. He offered a half-shrug to the general, who didn’t seem all that surprised to see him, and turned back to the gate.

He stood at the base of the ramp, and when the wormhole engaged he felt his heart leap when the first of SG-4 came through. He knew how this looked; he may as well be that guy with flowers at the airport. They knew it was Daniel he was waiting for, with their sideways glances and smirks, and he didn’t care.

And then Daniel came through the gate and he went up to meet him as the rest of the SG team filed past. He’d been planning on playing it cool but all that went right out of his head as he met Daniel halfway on the ramp. 

“My house was bugged, I had to say those things. I didn’t mean them.”

Daniel just stood there, holding a heavy-looking rock in his hands, not saying anything as Jack explained about the ruse. He looked tired, Jack realised, like he hadn’t slept for a week, and he felt even more guilty.

“I am _so_ sorry.”

Daniel kept watching him, considering him, and then finally, he said, “So the whole friendship thing... ” he trailed off, as if he needed to hear Jack say it.

“Completely solid,” he said with absolute confidence, “like a rock.” To demonstrate, he took the rock from Daniel’s hands. It was much lighter than he’d been anticipating and he was gripping it too hard and the whole thing crumbled into pieces on the ramp.

“Well, obviously not that rock...”

They both looked down at it. 

“Was it an important rock, or…?” He waited for Daniel to tell him that of course it was important, he wouldn’t be carrying it by hand otherwise, that it had the inscriptions of the Ancients carved into it and held the key to life itself.

But instead Daniel just looked at him, a hint of a smile around his eyes, and he said, “No. It wasn’t important at all.”

He felt warmth flow through him and he couldn’t help but smile and now Daniel was smiling back at him and they must have looked ridiculous to anyone watching. 

“Want to grab breakfast?” he said.

“Sure.”

“What about...” he waved a hand at the dusty mess on the ramp. 

Daniel looked at it, then shrugged. “I’m gonna let SG-4 clean that up.”

“Still hate them, huh?” Jack said as they headed out the gate room.

“Oh yeah.”

_Finis_


End file.
